sees fit. The Novena Open Laptop is a
prime example. Although aimed at a
niche market of engineers, the product raised more than $750,000 through
crowdfunding, and was used as the basis for several other projects, including
the Cryp Tech hardware security module. The community appreciates the
fact that open products are inherently
more secure and not tethered to their
manufacturers. These early adopters
are worth much more than the money they pay for the product. They will
be the product’s most ardent evangelists, especially if the philosophy behind the product is one they already
support. For example, the LimeSDR
project was able to raise more than
$1 million due to good word of mouth
among its backers.

due influence of third-party investors,
whose incentives may often be very different. Simply stated, crowdfunding is
necessary for the widespread adoption
of open hardware.

WORKING THE CROWD

Why is there a market for open hardware? Who wants to buy it, and why?

We’ve thought a lot about these ques-tions over the years at Crowd Supply—the company I co-founded as a placededicated to bringing original, useful,and respectful hardware to life. Custom-ers of open hardware are a diverse group:multinational corporations, nation-states, schoolchildren, hopeful parents,hardened engineers, and self-proclaimedcrypto-anarchists. Their reasons forwanting open hardware also run thegamut, but can be boiled down to one ormore of the rights listed in Crowd Sup-ply’s Proclamation of User Rights [ 2].The Proclamation defines a set of users’rights and their implication for creatorsof open hardware, and is quite similar innature to open-source software licenses.At its core, it is a statement of supportfor the curiosity, independence, priva-cy, and security of the user. In workingwith product designers and engineersto bring their ideas to market, we haveseen firsthand how creators benefit eco-nomically from opening their products.

Early adopters understand the value of being able to explore and modify
a product, and to make it do things beyond the creator’s original intent. In
fact, open products can outlast their
creators and grow as the community